


A horse is not a home (Utom Kanske Är Jag Kär I Dig).

by pr_scatterbrain



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Ballet AU, Berlin (City), Found Family, Gen, Hipsters, Multi, Pre-Poly, band au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-10 09:23:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7839340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pr_scatterbrain/pseuds/pr_scatterbrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Berlin isn’t home to Nicky, but it’s close enough for the time being. He arrives after a haphazard stint at university with a record contract that he got through a friend of a friend. Sort of. In that he sort of made an EP. That’s what the label is calling it. He isn’t sure it’s anything more than a mix tape he made for an ex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A horse is not a home (Utom Kanske Är Jag Kär I Dig).

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maunnier (jbmaunier)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jbmaunier/gifts).



> To maunnier (jbmaunier) - I hope you enjoy this. After seeing the fake!rock band clip you linked to in your dear author letter, I couldn't help but write a band au (and sneak in a ballet au). I couldn't quite decide if I was going to write ot4 or gen, so I sort of did both? Feel free to interpret it however you like <3<3<3 
> 
> Also, a translation of the title if you were wondering is 'A horse is not a home (but maybe I love you)' which is as hipstery as I could get.
> 
> Plus a big thank you to my lovely lifesaver beta Rae <3

 

 

 

 

 

_In 50 years, I don't think you're gonna look back at 2006 and say, 'The good old days.'_

Brandon Flowers 

 

 

 

Berlin isn’t home to Nicky, but for the time being it’s close enough. He arrives after a haphazard stint at university and gets lost between the train station and the apartment that he’d organised before he left Sweden. A friend of a friend has a spare room. It’s not much. If he’s honest, he doesn’t particularly like it, but he knows better than to let that show. That or his homesickness. 

He arrives in early winter with a record contract he got through another friend of a friend. Sort of. In that he ‘sort of’ made an EP. At least that’s what the label is calling it. He isn’t sure it’s anything more than a mixtape he made for an ex. It’s full of songs that blur into one another and lyrics that still feel too personal to sing in front of people.

For the first week and the one that follows it, all he seems to do is go out. Days are a haze. At night he goes out and follows his producer, Chris Clark, as he takes him from loft to underground bar to pop-up show and back again. Nicky doesn’t sleep more than five hours in total those two weeks. Sometimes he doesn’t think he sleeps at all. He certainly doesn't record a thing. 

"We'll get to that," Chris says. 

Chris would know. Probably.

Chris has a CV filled with bands and musicians that feel light years apart from Nicky and his garageband efforts.  When he was around Nicky's age he released an EP and two LPs of experimental neo-retro music before shifting directions towards folk psychedelic. It's been almost ten years and people are still waiting to see what he's going to do next. What actually happens next isn't the folk synth noir long-play epic Chris mentioned working on during a radio interview in the early-2000s, but a crash course to Berlin.   

Chris teaches him where all the backdoors are and introduces him to bouncers and bartenders and to anyone that he feels like Nicky should know, and eventually, after a few weeks (and no recording sessions) later Chris hooks Nicky up with his first gig too. It at a party for one of his friends, Matt or Mitch or something. On the night itself, Nicky turns up with his laptop and his hands shake a little when he sets it up. Matt or Mitch makes a joke about that, and gets him a bottle of cider. Nicky doesn’t like to place too much weight in a first impression, but he isn’t sure if he likes Matt or Mitch. He doesn’t say anything though. He’s pretty sure no one shares his opinion.

Matt or Mitch and his roommates live in a leaking studio that they sublet from a PhD dropout whom Nicky is pretty sure is a drug dealer. The guy turns up halfway through the night and corners Nicky between songs and tries to talk about Rousseau with him. Leaning into Nicky’s space, he recites crap as if it means something before pausing in the middle of a sentence to ask if Nicky has a light.

“No,” Nicky says.

The guy blinks, and then continues talking. 

The set itself isn’t too bad. Not that Nicky has many other shows to compare it too. Or any really, apart from a few house parties he DJ’d for back in uni and the one gig at Henrik’s twin brother’s friend’s cousin’s thing. Other than that, he’s never really played his music before. That’s probably the point of the gig. It's not like Capital Records wants him to record an album of remixes.

His stuff sound different in a room full of people. Nicky has to change his style up a little. It kind of works and partly doesn’t. Nicky messes up a few times; fiddling with the vocals and forgetting to speed them up to compliment the mood of the party.

Yet when looks up from his laptop, Nicky doesn’t think it matters.

No one is really listening.

 

 

To Chris, the gig is considered a start more than it is considered a success. Over the following days, he and Nicky’s label lines up some more gigs. Actual ones.

“No one wants to see me on a stage with my laptop,” he tells Chris.

Chris gives him a look. “I agree. Trade garageband for guitars.”

Nicky doesn’t know what that means.

“Find yourself a band,” Chris tells him, spelling it out.

 

 

Nicky has no idea where to find a band or how. He’s still getting the hang of public transport in Berlin. He doesn’t know how to say that. Instead he nods when Chris pulls some strings with Capital Records and gets him on a few guest lists and makes him attend a few record party releases. Once there he is introduced to people. It takes Nicky a while to realize the people he meets are often musicians of some kind or another.

He is trying to talk to one, when he is introduced to Alex.

“Alex, or Sanja,” Alex or Sanja says.

Most people tend to call him Alex, and by the end of the night so does Nicky.

Alex comes and talks to Nicky during his DJ set. The booth is small, and made much smaller by Alex’s presence. He is very loud and very bright and extremely distracting. Everyone seems to know him.

He lives with another Alex, who is introduced as Sasha. Nicky doesn’t actually get to meet him that night in the underground club. Sasha isn’t there. Sasha never seems to be at any of the parties or events that Nicky and Alex end up running into each other at. According to Alex, Sasha has an actual job with regular hours and the like. (Which makes him a rarity in Berlin where no one seems to have an actual job with actual hours).

“So he’s working now?” some asshole with ombre hair asks. “I heard he was fired.”

“Fuck you Troy,” Alex winks. “He works nights.”

It’s a joke. Or at least, it maybe sounds like one to Nicky. People laugh at it either way.

According to Alex, Sasha is a dancer. He’s in the middle of a run of performances. Alex offers Nicky free tickets. Nicky doesn’t take them. The pit of his stomach twists a little with anxiety. He doesn’t even know Sasha. He can’t take family tickets from him. Nicky wants very much to be the kind of person his record label is selling him as, but he knows he isn’t cool or confident or anything like that.

“You have mystic,” Alex tells him.

Nicky really doesn’t. What he has is a recognisable last name.

When he says that, Alex doesn’t deny it.

They’re on the train on the way home. It would have been quicker for Nicky to take the tram, but he likes how doesn’t feel so tongue tied when he’s with Alex. He likes Alex in general.

“You also have a record contract.”

Nicky snorts. He isn’t sure that counts for anything when he has a contract with the shittiest label in Berlin. Despite all the promises Capital Records made back when he was in Sweden, Nicky is yet to make it inside a studio to actually begin recording anything. When it became clear that his label wasn't in a rush to produce and release his EP, Alex got him a job as a waiter at a fancy restaurant where he knew the manager.

“Why are you here?” he asks Alex.

Alex shrugs. “Berlin is the new New York.”

Nicky wants to roll his eyes, instead he ends up smiling.

 

 

It takes Nicky a while to find out, but it turns out Alex is in school. It’s something he plays down. Apparently he’s doing some kind of post graduate degree in Sports Psychology.

Nicky knew Alex was smart, but Alex is  _really_  clever.

(Alex is also a disaster.)

 

 

Among other people, Alex knows a photographer who freelances for a local street zine. Tomáš Fleischmann is a bit of a douche, but maybe that’s just because his last exhibit was an art installation of concept Polaroid portraits. He took them as people arrived to the opening and made everyone pin them up or shell out €50 to keep them. (Alex did). Nicky also suspects the bike Tomáš rides everywhere is stolen, but it’s not like Nicky can prove it.

Alex likes him, but Alex likes most people.

Through Tomáš, Alex gets tickets to this secret underground show Chicks on Speed are doing. Apparently Niskannon is opening for them, and Wardo’s opening for him. Everyone knows COS, but Nicky doesn’t know any of the opening band’s songs or even the band. Not really. He doesn’t say so. Alex’s friend Brooks does and everyone laughs at him. Apparently Niskannon is Matt Niskanen side project with Marcus Johansson and Wardo isn’t a band but Joel Ward doing some solo stuff. That means something to them, but not so much to Nicky. According to Alex, Nicky has met all of them and played one gig with Marcus. At this point that could be true – or knowing Alex, it could be a lie.  

Alex grins a little, like that’s a joke and he’s the only one in on it.

Nicky shoves him a little. “I need a beer.”

He does.

By the time he gets one, Niskannon is on stage and Alex is pushing his way to the very front of the crowd. His height sets him apart, as does the easy way he holds himself. Instead of joining him, Nicky only lets himself be drawn into the edge crowd and to sway with them.

One of Alex’s other friends finds him like that. Nicky can’t remember his name, but he has kind eyes and a strong accent that might be American or Canadian. Somehow he accidentally says that, but instead of insulting Alex’s friend, Nicky ends up finding out that his name is Mike Green and he’s a transplanted Canadian. There are a lot of transplanted people in Berlin.

“I lost you back there,” Alex says afterwards.

Nicky’s ears are ringing. He almost misses what Alex said.

Mike swings an arm over Nicky’s shoulder, buzzed and restless. “I looked after him.”

He laughs, loud and happy. 

Nicky takes another sip of his beer to hide whatever his mouth is doing.

“Good boy, Greenie,” Alex says, draping himself over Mike.

Mike braces himself a little, but only to wrap an arm lazily around Alex’s waist. Nicky gets the feeling Mike doesn’t care about putting on a show or that Berlin right now is apparently what New York was like in the 80s. (Nicky thinks New York was probably pretty shit in the 80s). There is no polish to him or façade.

“Did you have fun?” Alex asks.

Nicky finds himself grinning a little. “I survived.”

Alex opens his mouth to say something, but Brooks interrupts him.

They don’t get a chance to talk about it again.

 

 

There is always somewhere to be in Berlin. The nights are never long enough. Nor are the days where Nicky waits tables. There is always something open or about to open and if Alex doesn’t know where the next party is, Mike or Brooks does, and sometimes, Nicky does too. He plays a few gigs with a rotating group of hired musicians. The only one who sticks is Mike who plays drums.

Sweden feels so very far away. The longer Nicky is in Berlin, the less he thinks of home.

 

 

Nicky finally meets Sasha almost a month after he arrived in Berlin.

It’s towards the end of another night. Nicky’s hair smells like cigarette smoke from the bar they’d just been in and Alex’s shirt is wrinkled and missing a few buttons. According to Alex, it's vintage Perry Ellis. Or what's left of it is. One of Brooks’ stylist friends, Braden Holtby, dressed Nicky in too much borrowed Saint Laurent which is better than the Gucci castoffs Braden made Nicky wear at his last gig. The street style photographers who seemed to be everywhere appeared to like it. Also Jay Beagle, who claims to be one but mostly, is a pretentious dick with a digital camera and blog. According to Jay most street style photographers are. He’d just gotten back to Berlin after working in Asia for Chinese Vogue. He boasted about that while the other photographers loitered, waiting for their chance. Nicky hadn't noticed their attention, but Alex did. He was a little bit like some bird of paradise when he was the centre of attention; all bright eyes and easy smiles and angles to be captured on film. Or at least they were two bars and a gallery opening ago.

It's easy to lose track of things in Berlin.  

They wash up at Alex’s apartment a bit after midnight, which is early for them but not for Sasha. Alex is delighted to see him stepping out of a taxi just as they walk into the lobby.

“Sema,” he coos, wrapping his arms around him.

 Sema is Sasha.

Sasha is tall, pink cheeked, and awkward in a way Nicky didn’t think professional dancers could be. However, Sasha looks exactly how Nicky imagined a dancer would look. Dressed in a beautifully cut tuxedo, Sasha looks like he stepped out of the society pages. It’s a bit of a contrast.

Apparently he’s come straight from a charity gala where he was one of the ballet dancers his company had wheeled out to help convince people to donate large sums of money. However he hadn’t done the best job.

“There is lipstick on your cheek,” Alex tells him, leaning over to rub it off.

Sasha blushes. As he does, Alex smile softens into something small and private.

It’s clear that Alex adores him and vice versa.

Alex shrugs a little when he catches Nicky gaze. “He’s my best friend.”

A day ago, he called Nicky that.

“I meant it,” Alex says. For some reason, Nicky thinks he does.

Sasha is hard to read in comparison. Apart from Alex, the only other person Sasha actually seems to like is Mike. Maybe it should be surprising but somehow it isn’t. Mike is Mike. When he is around Sasha it is clear that he likes Sasha too. Some days he picks Sasha up from work on his bright orange scooter and other days he makes him laugh.  

Sasha’s easier to like when Mike is around. When it’s just him and Nicky, Nicky doesn’t know what to think of Sasha or how to talk to him.

“He is shy,” Alex tells Nicky.

Nicky can be shy too, though he hates being called that. It always sounds like an insult. 

“I know,” Alex says, and Nicky thinks Alex does (and that he doesn’t hold it against him).

 

 

At a party, Nicky overhears a group of people talking about him.

He had been talking to them an hour or so ago. However, then Mike had arrived and had dragged Nicky off into the stairwell to get away from Matt (not Mitch) Bradley who was arguing with Olaf Kolzig about something to do with Karen O. When Nicky walked back into the apartment the argument was over, but Mike had drifted off to comfort Olaf, which left Nicky alone to nurse a beer and wince when he overhears his name.

“Nicklas Bäckström? Like Carin and Ander Bäckström’s son?” he hears a girl wearing thick tortoise rimmed glasses asks. “Really?”

“Yeah, I know,” the guy who Nicky had talked about Charles Bukowski with moments before, smirks. "And he's Kristoffer Bäckström's brother."

The girl takes a sip of her bottle of perry. “Wow.”

The guy nods “ _I know_.”

Nicky – Nicky stands there and then this guy who Nicky is almost certain he spotted Alex talking to a while ago, pipes up, out of nowhere. “I heard Ted Leonsis personally signed him.”

In unison, everyone does that thing that people do in Berlin when they are impressed but don’t want to show it.

 

 

The follow day Nicky stays curled up in his bed and fiddles around on garageband. He doesn’t want to think about anything other than the song he’s half-heartedly working on.

(There is a reason Nicky performs under the pseudonym ‘Young Gun.’)

 

 

Towards the middle of winter, Alex has a symposium thing. He texts everyone the details, but since he’s speaking first thing in the morning hardly anyone shows up.

Nicky makes it, but mostly because he comes straight from a Capital’s Records gig. Not one of his though. Another artist on the label, Eric Fehr, had a release party and a release after party. There was also and after-after party back at Eric’s place.

It’s only when Nicky is signing in, he finds out that Alex is a key speaker.

“I thought I told you that?” Alex says, when they catch up afterwards.

Alex is wearing a suit and shiny oxfords.

“You combed your hair,” Nicky points out, because someone has to.

It must have been Sasha. He must have done that to Alex (and to Berlin).

If anything, Sasha looks better than Alex. In the midmorning sunlight, he radiates good health. It’s awful. His blonde hair shines and there is such strength to his shoulders. When Nicky had sat next to him during the morning session of the symposium, he had felt particularly sloppy in comparison.

“I told you, right?” Alex asks Sasha.

Sasha smiles fondly and shakes his head. “But I guessed.”  

Alex shrugs and then shamelessly steals the last of Nicky’s hot chocolate.

He makes a face as he realises what it is. “What the fuck, Nicky?”

Nicky shoves him. The looks he got in the lecture hall were more than enough to shame him from getting anything caffeinated. Just because he’s still a bit drunk doesn’t mean he has to acknowledge it.

Alex rolls his eyes when Nicky says as much. “Like I give a fuck about that. Fuck. Come on. You need to buy me coffee.”

Nicky feels like shoving him again. How are they friends? He doesn’t know.

Instead he buys them coffee and then sleeps off his hangover in Alex’s shared office space.

 

 

A week later, Nicky wakes up to catch his roommate going through his wallet.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he says, his voice loud in the dark.

His roommate sneers at him and says some shit about how generous they’ve been the last few months to put up with him and his shit music and how he should watch his fucking mouth. Nicky looks at them and they look back at him. He curses, and their face twists into something ugly.

It’s the start of a crappy day.

At work he feels flustered and annoyed with himself. Somehow he manages to mix up a large lunch party order and then he drops a tray of dirty wine glasses. It isn’t good, but it isn’t the end of the world. His manager still sends him outside to cool off for five minutes. When he does, he almost runs into Sasha by the curb. In the daylight, his eyes are very blue and he smiles when he sees Nicky.

Somehow Nicky ends up tells him about what happened.

“And I still haven’t recorded a single thing,” he somehow ends up telling Sasha too.

It’s the elephant in the room. No one seems to notice it apart from him.

He’s been in Berlin for months and months now and his label doesn’t seem interested in doing anything with him. All he does is go to parties, open for other bands, get paid in ‘exposure’ rather than euro’s, and wear borrowed clothes to events. He feels like an imposter. Blinking, he closes his eyes. It’s stupid. The whole thing is stupid.

“Hey,” Sasha says. “It’ll be ok.”

Nicky doesn’t know how anyone can say that, let alone Sasha.

Sasha laughs a little when Nicky says as much. “It’s what Alex says to me.”

And yeah. That does sound like something Alex would say. He’d mean it too.

“He means everything he says,” Sasha says, and he would know.

 

 

(An hour later Mike texts him and invites him to move into his place).

 

 

(After work, Sasha helps him move).

 

 

Living with Mike is strangely easy. His apartment is even tinier than the one Nicky moved out of, but Mike has a way of sharing space that makes it feel larger. He moved to Berlin around the same time Alex did, not for school but with a band. They also bought into the ‘Berlin is the new New York’ thing, but after a few months they broke up. Mike is still on good terms with the members who stayed in Berlin. He and Nicky go to Brooks’ first solo gig together, and end up staying afterwards to drink with him and get high while Beirut plays.  

Nicky likes Brooks – to be honest he doesn’t see why he and Mike aren’t still playing music together.

Mike shrugs when Nicky asks. “We have different ideas about music.”

Nicky understands that.

He has different ideas about music to his parents and his brother – something that a lot of people seem to talk and write about.  

“Tell me a secret,” Mike asks, curling an arm around Nicky’s shoulder when they get home.  

It’s late and they’re both drunk and maybe a little high. Mostly though, Nicky feels dead on his feet. He worked the morning shift at one of his jobs and covered the lunch shift at another one. He hasn’t stopped moving since before dawn. Collapsing into their couch, he manages to crack over his eyes open a tad; slits of blue in the dark.

“Alex was wearing mismatched socks today.”

Mike snorts.

“That’s not a secret. Alex keeps wearing capri pants,” he retorted. “A secret is something no one else knows, not you and everyone else in Berlin who had the misfortune of running into Alex today.”

Nicky shakes his head and kicks off his shoes, one by one. They landed with identical thumps on the floorboards. If Nicky was back at his old place, his former roommates would be giving Nicky shit for it.

“Try again,” Mike asks, not giving in.

Nicky closed his eyes, and tucked his chin into the crock of Mike’s neck; his skin is warm and his hair is curling a little from the rain. Mike’s fingers twitch a little, trying to hold Nicky closer in response. Letting out a laugh, one that is perhaps too soft and sweet, Nicky feels his lips curling into a smile. Everything feels very still.

“I ordered turkey and tomato on rye today for lunch.”

Settling into the couch cushions, Mike let his grip loosen. “Not chicken and avocado on wholemeal?”

“Nope.”

“You risk taker.”

“Yep, and it didn’t stop there.”

“No?” Nicky exclaims, in faux shock.

“I had a latte instead of cappuccino too.”

“Wow.” Mike says. “You did go crazy today.”

“Yeah, that’s me. Nicklas ‘crazy risk taker’ Bäckström,” Nicky tells him; only a yawn interrupted him before he could say anything further.

Mike closes his eyes a little. “I caught Matt trying to steal TJ’s cashmere sweater today.”

“Asshole Matt Bradley or bar fight Matt Cooke?”

“Matt Niskanen.”

“Why was he there? I thought he’d moved to Vancouver.”

(Apparently Vancouver is the new Florence; whatever the fuck that means).

“He hasn’t. He was lunch with TJ and that guy – the tall one,”

Nicky paused – Lars something, Eller maybe? He’s pretty sure they meet at the Capital Records showcase thing the week before last.  

“I saw Matt try and bribe the coat room attendant into handing it over.”

“How did you see this?”

“Alex asked me to come as his date.”

“As his decoy,” Nicky corrects; his voice sleep slow and soft.

“Same difference.”

Nicky supposes he’s right; Alex is Alex after all.

“Get him to use Sasha next time,” Nicky says anyway, knowing he should say something.

His closes his eyes then, sleep tugging at him quietly, but insistently.

It’s silent for a while, then -       

“Why would Matt want to steal TJ’s sweater? Like, why? I've been thinking about it all day and I still don't get it.”

Nicky sighs. Mike peers at him, all bright eyes and irreverence.

“I don’t know. Maybe he liked it or something.”

 

 

After Nicky’s next gig, there is a journalist waiting backstage.

The interview runs a few days later

Apparently Nicky has some buzz.

Chris calls and talks about booking some session time.

Apparently it's time for his sort of EP is going to become an actual EP.

"Supply breeds demand," Chris says. 

Nicky snorts. "Like fuck it does."

 

 

On a random Tuesday night Chris calls Nicky up to tell him to go to some place near Mitte. It’s a paid gig this time and Mike grins when Nicky tells him. It doesn’t take long for Alex to know and then everyone does. He turns up early and helps them transport their gear. In a borrowed car they drive across the city and park in reserved parking. It’s kind of cool. The apartment building is old, probably by a few centuries and it has a chandelier in the lobby. The gig goes pretty well. Nicky is getting better at playing his own music, and singing to people. He still hides behind his laptop screen a little, but Alex says that only helps with his enigmatic reputation.

Nicky thinks Alex should front a band. He has more than enough charisma. Plus, everyone has heard him sing when he’s tipsy. He has a pretty good voice.

After they finish up, a DJ takes over. It takes a while to break down their equipment. By the time they are finished, Nicky’s high from performing is mostly gone. In its place is bone weary exhaustion.

Mike and Alex are in their element. They are both bright eyed and flushed; Mike from drumming and Alex from dancing. They are surrounded by a group of people who kind of look familiar to Nicky.  No one bothers with introductions. Nicky supposes they could have been done before at another party or event of some kind. It wouldn’t be surprising. In all probability he could have met everyone in the room more than once before. He goes out more than enough.

He used to be good with names.

Well, he thinks he was. He doesn’t know for sure now.

At one point everyone in the group laughs. Nicky joins in. He doesn’t know why, but he does.

Across the room there is a line forming for the bathroom. Nicky thinks some things don’t change.

Everyone laughs again. Nicky misses the joke and it’s too late to laugh with everyone else, so he doesn’t.

Alex shaved half his head the day before. He’d paid a guy €50 to do it. Nicky thinks he paid €45 too much, but he can’t deny the way his closely cut hair highlights the strong line of his jaw and the length of his neck. Tearing his eyes away from Alex, Nicky goes into the kitchen with the vague intention of getting a soda or something. A blonde girl in high waisted leather shorts and a top with 80s shoulder pads has already commandeered all the soda water (or San Pellegrino sparkling mineral water – of course) and she’s mixing some kind of fizzy cocktail for herself and a guy who’s perched up on the kitchen bench watching her intently.

“You can have some,” she offers.

Nicky shakes his head. The girl shrugs and takes a sip of whatever she had mixed together and leaves a crimson lipstick imprint on the cup. Filling up back to the brim with gin, she hands it over to the guy who smiles shyly. He has a nice smile. He has a nice everything, if Nicky is honest. Above his head, a clock ticks a second forward. The whole night stretches forth in front of Nicky.

It’s not late. Not yet.

Somehow they end up talking. He tells them about his music and his attempts to form a band and they exchange music recommendations that they are listening to at the moment (none of the names they name are familiar but they insist the bands are worth looking up) and they end up swapping numbers and email addresses. After a month straight of Mike playing The Smiths, Nicky means it when he says he’d like to hear some of their stuff. Or any new stuff.

Alex finds him like that three quarters of an hour later. By then they’ve given up some mineral water and Nicky has accepted some of their gin. Using his hands he is telling him about the tonal quality of vintage guitars and the soundtracks by films by genre when Alex appears, interrupting Nicky just as they – “This is Amanda and Sid,” – start talking about the dichotomy of gender politics in New German cinema. Nicky expects Alex to take over, because it’s him not Nicky who has a hard on for Werner Herzog, but he doesn’t say a word. It’s fucking weird. Nicky turns to him to say something and finds Alex looking at Sid from what was left of the hair that hung over his eyes.

It’s only later Alex snaps out of whatever it was that made him go mute and doe eyed.

“That was Sidney Crosby,” Alex hisses when they are outside in the cold, walking to the car.

“What?”

 “You were talking to Sidney Crosby.”

“Yeah?”

“How were you talking to Sidney Crosby?”

Nicky is confused. “He offered me a drink.”

Alex - “He offered you a drink?”

Nicky shrugs. Technically his friend did. “I thought he looked familiar.”

Alex makes an incredulous sound.

“Was that the guy who – ” Mike attempts a spin. “in the dude only Swan Lake? Was the Prince Swan there too? That hot Russian guy who stole Sasha’s part?”

Alex bristles.

“I’m just asking,” he laughs when Alex glares at him, holding up his hands in jest. “Sasha’s hotter anyway.”

Nicky finds himself laughing too. It’s not every day that someone meets the next Wayne Gretzky. “I should have gotten him to autograph something.”

“Fuck you,” Alex tells them, but he’s smiling too.

 

 

The thing about Alex is that he is easy to fall for. Nicky feels a bit embarrassed about how easily and quickly he did.

There haven’t been many people in Nicky’s life. Not in that way. There was Henrik, but everyone fell for him. He knows that Alex is different to him. Alex has a huge heart, and is a bit in love with everyone he knows. Probably mostly with Sasha. It isn’t something that everyone knows. For some reason Sasha has a particularly ugly reputation. Despite the fact that no one seems to actually know him, a lot of people like to talk shit about him.

It’s something that Alex doesn’t like.

“Sasha lost his last job because of gossip,” he tells Nicky.

Alex’s tone of disgust voice speaks volumes.

Sasha is the reason Alex is in Berlin. A scholarship to one of the most prestigious universities in Europe helped, but he followed Sasha here.

Apparently Sasha is between companies again. Alex didn’t say ‘again’ but Nicky knows how to read between the lines. A major ballet company back in Russia wants Sasha to come home, but according to Alex, Sasha has a few prospects in Berlin that he’s following up.

Sometimes if Nicky isn’t working on the weekend, he goes over to their place and reads his emails while Alex does his homework and Sasha stretches by the window. It’s always peaceful. Sometimes Mike drops around after he finishes his morning shift and brings warm pastries and coffee for them.

Today when Nicky turns up, he spots a hickey on the base of Sasha’s throat.

“Sema is new soloist,” Alex crows proudly, kissing Nicky hello on both cheeks. “We found out this morning.”

Nicky feels himself blush. They clearly celebrated the news this morning too.  

“You’ll come to his opening night?” Alex asks when Nicky has dropped his bag and unbuttoned his coat.

Nicky’s days don’t seem long enough to fit in the studio sessions he’s doing with Chris, the gigs his label is booking him to do and the tables he is still waiting. He hasn’t touched any of his wip songs in more than a week. However, Alex is glowing with joy and over his shoulder Sasha is smiling at him hopefully, all bruised knees and shy eyes. Nicky nods.

“I want to see you dance,” he tells Sasha softly.

He thinks he might understand Sasha a little better if he does.

 

 

(Nicky wants to know Sasha).

 

 

Nicky loves Berlin completely un-ironically.

He loves the dirty streets and the way the winter wind strips him down to his bones. He loves the island of museums and the bars and the way each morning Mike drives them to the studio on his scooter. He loves how Alex always finds a way to turn up with coffee exactly when they need it and the way the three of them sometimes have early dinners with Sasha whenever they can catch him. Maybe the best thing about Berlin is his friends and how they can stay out way too fucking late at one of his label-mate’s gigs. By the time the night finishes, it’s early and the three of them end up walking back to Alex’s apartment with takeaway breakfast.

None of them are particularly quiet when they arrive, particularly not Alex who drags them into his room to have breakfast in bed. They find Sasha curled up in week old sheets, his skin warm to the touch and his bracken brown lashes blinking slowly against his pale cheeks as he wakes up.

Logically Nicky knows they all smell of smoke, stale beer and probably a bit of wet dog (thanks to Alex tripping Nicky into the gutter – which is long story), but he crawls into bed alongside Mike and Alex none the less.

“Good night?” Sasha asks sleepily, stroking a hand through Alex’s hair.

Like a cat, Alex leans into his touch.

“Very,” Alex smiles and kisses the corner of his mouth. “Good morning?”

“Could be worse,” Sasha tells him, accepting a take away tea from Mike.

Settling beside him, Alex expression is very soft and very fond. Nicky ducks his head a little. A moment later he feels Sasha’s fingers lacing through his, and it’s second nature to squeeze back when Sasha squeezes them.

“How did it go with your label?”

“Good,” Nicky tells him, because he thinks it did.

“Good?” Alex interrupts, huffing. “Nicky and Mike were  _brilliant_.”

Nicky blushes. Alex always says things like that. Mike is no help either.

He just grins and nods. “We were.”

 

 

Walking home after in the afternoon, Mike pinched Nicky’s side to get his attention. It’s a bit of an underhand trick when they’re both hungover. Nicky bets Mike learnt it from Alex.

“Tell me a secret,” he says while they wait for a tram. “One no one else in the world knows.”

Swatting Mike away, Nicky eyes him balefully. “Tell me a secret first.”

“I asked first,” Mike says. “Tell me a real one. Not some crap about what you ate for lunch.”

Nicky flicks Mike’s ear and tried to squirm away. Mike holds on tight.

“Okay.” Nicky says. “Alex asked me to Sasha’s opening night.”

“Really?” Mike asks, peering at Nicky though his messy hair.

“Sasha asked me come too,” Nicky confirms, moving to rest his temple against Mike’s. Closing his eyes, Nicky takes a breath. “I think it’s a date. I want it to be a date.”

Mike is quiet.  

Bracing himself, Nicky meets Mike’s gaze. Up close Mike’s eyes, though hazy with the leftovers of sleep, are very dark. Nicky feels his throat do something it shouldn’t. He tried to make it into a laugh instead. Mike lets him.

“Tell me when you know for sure,” Mike tells Nicky, and there is something so kind about his voice.

Mike is so kind. Nicky feels so lucky to know him.

It’s only after their tram arrives and they manage to find a seat that Mike nudges him.

“Aren’t you going to ask me to tell you a secret?” Mike asks; his voice and tone more familiar than almost anything else in Berlin.

All Nicky wants is press his face into the warm crock of Mike’s neck and sleeps like that. He feels tried and maybe a little worn too thin and achingly fragile and he loves Mike so much.

He doesn’t know if he can manage this.

“Nicky?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m so happy you asked me to join your band.”

Nicky exhales in a rush. “Me too.”

 

 

Sasha’s opening night arrives before the Young Gun’s debut album drops. (Not that that is an achievement at this point).

Alex turns up with roses and dressed in Sasha’s tuxedo. It doesn’t quite fit but Alex wears it with enough confidence to carry it off. He even gets snapped by a street style photographer when they arrive, an actual one. Neither Nicky or Mike get a fraction of the attention Alex effortlessly receives wherever he goes, but they do buy Sasha flowers.

“Are flowers okay?” Nicky asks Alex.

“Of course. Who doesn’t like flowers?”

Nicky isn’t sure if that was what he asked, but he supposes it’s the correct answer. Mike holds them during the performance. His sweaty hands wrinkle the paper, but no one notices. No one would when Sasha is on stage.

Strong, brave and gracefully, Sasha is utterly compelling to watch.

Nicky can’t take his eyes off him.

 He thinks he understands Sasha now.

Afterwards, when they go backstage and watch him scrubbing off his stage make-up, Sasha is simultaneously Sasha-the-soloist and the Sasha-offstage that Nicky has come to know. Luminous and full of joy, he smiles so brightly when Mike hands him the huge bunch of roses and hugs him. Then without blinking, Sasha reaches for Nicky and hugs him so tightly. Nicky hands fumble and maybe so does his heart.  

“You were so good,” he tells Sasha.

Sasha kisses his cheek. “Thank you.”

 

 

(Nicky goes to see Sasha dance nearly a dozen times over the course of his shows run. Sometimes with Alex, sometimes with Mike, and sometimes by himself).

 

 

There are posters scattered throughout Berlin.

Alex drops by Nicky’s work with one he ripped off a wall somewhere in the city.

“Want to sign it for me?” he asks.

Nicky looks at the bold graphics; he saw and approved of the proofs but this is different.

Pulling out a marker, Alex grins.

“You’re the worst,” Nicky tells him, because he is.

Quickly he scribbles his signature and rolls up the poster before anyone else can see.

“Guess what?” Alex asks as Nicky is twisting an elastic band around the tightly rolled poster.

Alex’s eyes are bright. Nicky is almost afraid to ask, but he does anyway.

“Brooks has been teaching me how to play guitar.”

Nicky finds himself grinning. “Is that so?”

“I figured you could use a good guitarist.”

“I play guitar.”

Alex shrugs. “I was thinking you should switch over to bass.”

“Did you?”

Alex begins to grin. “I do.”

Nicky can’t help but laugh. “Sounds like a plan.”

 

 

(After all, Chris did say to trade garageband for guitars).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find/follow me on [tumblr](http://www.pr-scatterbrain.tumblr.com) if you want <3


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